Celebrating Forty Years of Faith in the City, 2025, edited by Terry Drummond and Joseph Forde, Durham, Sacristy Press
In December 1985 the Church of England published a report entitled Faith in the City. To say that it caused something of a rumpus is a slight understatement. At about the midpoint of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership, it came as a shock to many in the government that the Church of England could commission and publish a report which was critical of much of the direction the government was heading in. Indeed, at one point Mrs Thatcher was heard to refer to it as ‘that wicked report’.
To mark the fortieth anniversary of its publication, Terry Drummond and Joseph Forde have edited a selection of essays ‘Celebrating Forty Years of Faith in the City’. It is an interesting, stimulating and thought-provoking set of essays, from contributors with varying backgrounds, from those who were involved in the commission that produced the report to one born after its publication.
The first chapter sets the historical context, which many of us will still remember, though to others it is almost lost in the mists of history. At the time, I was the Vicar of an suburban parish in the north of Luton, and though it would be untrue to call it an Urban Priority Area, the one half of the parish that was a council estate shared some of the problems identified, even if not to the extent of the estates further from the town’s centre. The chapter gives a quick overview of the history surrounding the publication and reception of the report. This highlights both the strengths and weaknesses of the report, in particular the lack of voices from the urban priority areas: it was a report looking from the outside, and some felt this gave it a paternalistic feel. Additionally, of the 18 commissioners only three were female. Nevertheless this was a high impact report, and by 1987 all the party manifestos for the election that year included pieces which reflected its influence in drawing attention to urban poverty and deprivation.
There follow three major sections: Personal Reflections, Urban Mission and Ministry and Contemporary Challenges with a very brief drawing together of the themes to close.
The three personal reflections are very interesting, and it’s barely possible to do justice to the richness of these; nevertheless here are some indications. Alan Billings, reflecting as a priest-politician, quite robustly defends the methodology of the report and the general approach which owed much to the Anglican social theology that stems from William Temple. He acknowledges the influence of Latin American Liberation Theology (itself identified in a chapter on theological priorities), especially the audit which was recommended, which helped many urban parishes to work at theology for themselves, and highlights the work that went on in the Manor Parish. He questions whether there was a rather naïve liberalism, especially in relation to the strength of community cohesion. He is swingeing in his commentary on the difference in parish ministry in the 1980s and what has developed since with the greater emphasis on discipleship and gathered community models by which the church ‘sets itself up to fail and fatally weakens its place in the local community and, ultimately, the nation.’[1]
Ian Duffield’s contribution mixes sadness, verging on disillusion, that the agenda has changed and energy has dropped, alongside the shift in the church from 2004 on as the Reform and Renewal agenda took hold. However, he is not without hope, despite the social, economic and ecclesial differences that have developed in the forty years. He notes that though ‘the great enrichment’ during that period has changed our understanding of poverty, there will always be the need for those who sit alongside the poor in humble, sharing, mutually supportive ways. There’s a splendid set of dialectical propositions (justice needs mercy, freedom requires order, courage to be balanced by prudence, etc)[2]. And he is quite clear that undertaking a situational analysis is still fundamental to urban ministry, to seeing where liberation is needed most; indeed, we used a version of it to help students understand the locality where they were on placement.
David Walker’s perspective is shaped by twenty five years of episcopal ministry but remains grounded in doing theology alongside and prior to action; in the importance of prophetic actions, of making statements about what the world is like when the laws of God’s kingdom are being followed. The collapse of well paid male manual work since 1980s sparked a collapse in belonging and identity and the rise of right wing populism. Following an excellent analysis of the present situation he sees signs of hope for the future – in part through encouraging small cell churches in urban/outer urban situations.
In part three we move on to how things stand at the moment, though not without recognition of the work that has gone on in the last forty years. John Perumbalath draws a devasting picture of the impoverishment of the Liverpool diocese since 1985, only mitigated slightly because of Church Urban Fund, though that is less able to support than it was. He also draws our attention to the fact that urban issues have now become part of human life outside urban areas, and is encouraged that even with limited resources endeavours towards a just society continue.
Terry Drummond tells us that ‘After 20 years it ran out of steam and began to be less significant’[3] despite the efforts of the estates evangelism task group which started in 2019; and the Near Neighbours scheme of 2011. The report ‘Faithful Cities’ of 2006, looking at things twenty years on, quickly receded as the new priority of reversing the decline in numbers was prioritised over tackling inner city deprivation. I can vouch for its limited impact as it barely registered with the teaching of the ministry training scheme I was leading at the time despite our having an inner city summer school; on the other hand Mission Shaped Church was everywhere.
A chapter reflecting on the paradoxes of the parochial, shot through with examples from an east London parish, outlines the effect of neo-liberalism and its associated challenges: work no longer ensures people exit poverty; the impersonal and transactional nature of the way it works. Its author, Susan Lucas utters a clarion call about the importance of the parish in both personal and structural care for the poor and for society at large. ‘Simply being present’ she says ‘is a sign of the non-instrumental configuration of place, which stands against neoliberal models that configure it instrumentally – and disposably – as ways of fixing surplus capital and labour.’[4] There is a powerful challenge here not just to critique neo-liberalism but to offer a credible alternative.
Chapter 8 is a view from estates by Sophie Valentine Cowan, who was born after Faith in the city was published. She stresses the need for both bread and word, for both sustenance and spiritual nourishment, and warns the church not to become a middle class kingdom of God. It is a cry from the estates (on which she grew up as well as now ministers) that all is not well, and for a fair (re)distribution of resources.
In chapter 9, “Building a people of power”, about community organising and parish mission in east London, Angus Ritchie and Averil Pooten Watan argue against the expectation that they find in Faith in the City that those experiencing injustice can act as primary agents. There are encouraging stories of community organising – and the need to turn good advice into good news. Community organising intentionally develops leaders rooted in the local church, starting with the members’ interests, gifts and passions. They also write powerfully about the importance of prayer; there is a useful diagram of the cycle of prayer and organising[5], which is welcome in a volume that doesn’t say much about prayer and worship.
The last part of the book focuses on contemporary challenges. Joe Forde looks at church, state and welfare in England today, suggesting that since 2010 the Church of England has focused more on welfare interventions than seeking to shape government policy. He points to the evidence that Asset Based Community Development projects are successful. He also identifies loneliness as a sixth giant to be slain alongside Beveridge’s five of want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness (how the terminology we used has changed in the last 70 years!).
Finally, there is an interesting essay on Catholic Social Teaching in relation to the world we’re in, written by Jenny Sinclair, the (now Roman Catholic) daughter of David Sheppard – one of the movers behind the original report. This emphasises right relationship rather than welfare and utility: for instance, there is value in accompanying someone to collect their benefits rather than relying on digital transfer, which leave the recipient alone still. She sees much good having come out of Faith in the City, especially through the Church Urban Fund, but identifies that there is now an estrangement between Christians and poor communities.
Her vision is of a new settlement based on the communal, on subsidiarity and reciprocity, on listening and participating instead of relying on the market and the state. Her final challenge is a repetition of Pope Francis’ call that the church needs to be evangelised by the poor.
As I finished reading the collection I noted that there were several themes emerging. One is the sense of lament that the move in the last twenty years to an agenda shaped by Mission Shaped Church and the Reform and Renewal emphasis has resulted in a lack of emphasis on the local, on the parish; and the consequent withdrawal from the very areas which Faith in the City prioritised, together with the decline in engagement through presence that has accompanied the missional emphasis of the last two decades
On the other hand, many of the contributors highlight the continuing importance of the local and the parish, with the emergence of local theology, of an adaptation of the insights of Liberation Theology, and community development. Interestingly, theologically this mirrored my own exploration in the 1990s of the development and use of theological reflection in Anglican ministerial education, which has since become a significant part of ministerial formation. Quite often the authors are verging - sometimes deliberately - into the sort of local theology about which Clemens Sedmak wrote so powerfully at a global level[6], and which is at the base of most local ministry schemes that flourished at the end of the last century and the beginning of this.
It's also striking how different the church and the world both are now as compared to 1985, as decline has continued to mark the church and its priorities, and as neoliberalism - not far into its takeover of economic (and social) orthodoxy in 1985 - has reshaped so much.
Recently I have come to recognise that the best way of understanding the crucifixion is that Christ died on the cross in solidarity with humanity; the book asks me to think about what this means in practice. And here the original engagement with liberation theology in Latin America is significant 'As the final document of [the] Medellin [conference of Latin American and Caribbean bishops, 1968] emphasised, solidarity with the poor entails understanding their struggles, advocating on their behalf, and confronting injustice and oppression.' [7]
Such solidarity does not idealise the poor, but sees poverty as an evil to be resisted in Christ's name. Solidarity with Christ, the converse of Christ's solidarity with us, demands action. Hence the development of the radical concept of praxis, committed action after critical reflection. Though the word (which is of high importance to me) is not much evident in this volume of celebration and reflection, it is present in the background of the many ways in which since 1985. practical expression has been given to Jesus' Nazareth sermon:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me
because he has anointed me
to being good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives,
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free those who are oppressed.[8]
All this, Faith in the City attempted, in a quite radical manner, to address in the life of the church and the nation, with varying success, as this volume bears witness.
Finally, it’s refreshing to be reminded how within my lifetime the church was ‘notorious’ for its critique of urban deprivation and its call to both church and nation to action, rather than for its own internal fights and safeguarding inadequacies.
John Schofield
Sheffield, July 2025